FSM Friends’ News and Articles
Can “optimizing your metabolism” through diet prevent or cure COVID-19? “This fetishization of nutrition and food above all permeates not just the anti-vaccine movement but all of alternative medicine… there is considerable victim blaming among the ‘nutrition cures everything’ crowd.”
General
Dorit Rubinstein Reiss – an index of her vaccine articles on this website: Presentations were made on promising vaccine candidates. “What this presentation showed is that in addition to the large trials before licensing, COVID-19 vaccines will be subject to extremely extensive safety monitoring. This will draw on a combination of the existing and extensive safety monitoring mechanisms and new approaches… New programs will look more specifically at healthcare workers – assumed by all to be among the first groups to get the vaccines – and will include active questioning… Basically, a lot of effort is already going into safety, and aggressive oversight is planned.” Other important issues included an overview of epidemiology in the US, and modelling for the best strategies for vaccine allocations, such as vaccinating aged care workers vs vaccinating residents first. Unfortunately, anti-vaccine groups used the public comments for anti-vax posturing. But on the other hand “Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas” called for harnessing the power of Santas to fight diseases. One can’t make this up.
Lesser-known Health Professions
What does a Clinical Immunologist do?: As specialised medical doctors, immunologists manage many aspects of immune-system disorders, from allergies to severe auto-immune conditions.
Today’s Abused Health Concept
SCAM medicine to reduce opioid use – Does integrative medicine reduce prescribed opioid use for chronic pain? A favourite line of alt-med proponents is to point to the opioid crisis. Yet SCAM medicine performance in reducing opioid use is not well supported in evidence. “I have said several times before, the way to avoid over-prescribing opioid is not through using more therapies of doubtful effectiveness but through prescribing less opioids. And to achieve that, doctors should just do what they learnt in medical school “.